Musings on current events in the context of values, ethics and morality

Monday, 10 March 2014

Happiness is (only) for the undeserving

Whenever
someone returns from a lengthy journey, recovers from an illness or survives a
life-threatening situation, it is customary for the individual to make the following
blessing:

“הגומל לחייבים
טובות שגמלני כל טוב”

“Who causes
good things to happen to those liable and causes only good to happen for me”

The blessing
is often recited together when receiving an Aliya and always in front of a
minyan. The crux of the blessing is that “I realise that I am undeserving of
the kindness that I have been the recipient of.”

The blessing
is a replacement of the original Thanksgiving offering that features in this
week’s Parsha, where an individual, feeling a great sense of appreciation to
Hashem, would offer a sacrifice as a token of that appreciation.

In the world
of positive psychology, the correlation between appreciation and happiness is
almost the main thrust in the study of the science of happiness.

The concept
of appreciation is NOT saying thank you! It is a sense of being an undeserving
recipient of kindness. The need for the term ‘undeserving’ is crucial, because as
long as we believe that we deserve or are entitled to something, we will
struggle to show any real sense of appreciation − because we believe we have
earned it.

In truth,
there is very little that we deserve in life. We didn’t do anything to
‘deserve’ to be born. We didn’t do more than others to ‘deserve’ our good fortune of health, love,
family or prosperity. They are gifts.

We live in
an age of entitlement. People talk of rights, not privileges; expectations, not
responsibilities; demands, not allowances. Misery, in contrast, is the sense of
not getting what we believe we deserve, of life not living up to our
expectations.

The Thanksgiving
offering, or blessing, is coming to the realisation that we are undeserving of
the kindness we’ve received − and that should make us truly happy.